


Other Side Of The World

by orphan_account



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Medical, Sad Ending, Terminal Illnesses, dying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 11:48:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20357980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: After the events of Infinity Wars, Gamora was drifting around space. Then, she saw a pod headed for where else but Halfworld, and she knew it had to be Rocket Raccoon.After learning that he's ill, she tries to stay by his side.Comics continuity. Takes place during the 2019 GOTG run.





	Other Side Of The World

**Author's Note:**

> I made this because I still have so many questions after reading Issue 8 of the newest GOTG run. Also because I can't believe Gamora would just ditch Rocket like that, that's just not...in character for her I think. He's clearly very very sick so he can't fend for himself? I tried to at least come up with a rational reason as to why, here.
> 
> Characters might be OOC, I apologize, still new to writing GOTG characters.

The last place Gamora expected to be in the near future, was Halfworld.

After the Infinity Wars, the entire mess with Thanos and her struggles with Peter, she’d fled. Left the Guardians on their own.

What of Rocket? He’d left, too. Not for the same reasons, as she’d find out.

Gamora hadn’t been there when sneaked out of the spaceship one night, and she hadn’t even known he was around until she was drifting off in space by herself. It was pure luck that she found Halfworld. 

The planet was practically abandoned by the time the Guardians of the Galaxy were a thing, so when she saw the escape pod headed straight towards the planet, she knew it couldn’t have been anybody else but Rocket. She didn’t know something was wrong with him, yet.

Despite how he’d avoid discussing his origins, Gamora knew about Rocket’s painful past, as well as all the nightmares he’d had back when the Guardians were still close-knit. She related to his pain, however. That alone left her wondering why he wanted to return to a place filled with nothing but his own agonizing memories.

Halfworld was deceptively beautiful. Lush, green hills rolled,rivers ran through the land until they connected to the sea, and forests dotted the landscape. Terra-like blue sky contrasted with verdant mountains and cliffs. One wouldn’t have thought that for a second, horrifying experiments conducted on lower life forms for the sake of providing entertainment for the mentally ill were being done here. True to its name, it was  _ half _ that gorgeous natural landscape and half a galactic insane asylum of sorts.

The escape pod had landed rather clumsily, something quite uncharacteristic for Rocket. As Gamora watched from behind a boulder, she saw him clamber out of the pod, dragging along a heavy-looking bag with him. The raccoon’s movements were uncoordinated, he nearly fell to his knees multiple times as he seemed to stumble around the land. 

Following him, Gamora saw that he was headed to an abandoned fortress, long decayed from decades or perhaps centuries of disuse. As dilapidated as it seemed, with vines growing all around and the walls cracking with pressure, it was still a formidable building, long turrets sticking out at the edges. 

Why was he going in here?

A trail of fur littered the ground behind him which, combined with his erratic movements, had Gamora worried. , She took in the details of his physical appearance as she stealthily inched closer to him. For the most part, he looked as he did the last time she saw him, but she could see that he had gotten thinner, patches of fur were falling out and scabs formed from where he’d itched around his body. She watched as he pulled open a red curtain in one of the rooms, set his bag down on the ground, and climbed into the dirtied mattress, curling himself up into a ball.

Rocket was still volatile, even if he seemed discombobulated and looking like he’d begin sobbing into the mattress at any moment. She’d been with him for far too long to let her guard down at any time, despite the fact that she’d considered him her friend.

With this reasoning in mind, she opened the curtain slightly, peering into the room. It wasn’t much to look at, resembling a storage in a facility that hadn’t been maintained in too long. Next, she saw Rocket on the mattress. He was shrunken back in the corner, hugging his knees tightly and trembling, looking so very small and weak as the room seemed to close in on him.

“Rocket?” she whispered, and even a whisper was enough to set Rocket off, screaming curses at her as he cornered himself into the wall. She dared not to move closer, instead gesturing with her hands that she wouldn’t harm him. He glared at her, ruby-red eyes glistening in the harsh artificial light.

“You!” Rocket spat. “What the  _ flark _ are you doing here?! Have you been spying on me?!”

The raccoon was visibly shaking, inching away from the mattress as he reached into his bag for a weapon, glancing at Gamora occasionally with wide, furious eyes. Gamora knelt down to the ground, silently persuading Rocket to calm down, but the raccoon kept rummaging through his bag for a weapon. He hissed and cursed and spat, tail twitching and fur flying. She couldn’t recall a time when he’d been  _ this _ agitated before.

“Rocket.” Gamora whispered again. “Rocket, I’m not going to hurt you. I want to help you.”

“I don’t need help!”

“Then why are you here?” Gamora gestured around the room, “Your fur is falling out, you’re behaving oddly, I know something is wrong!”

“You spied on me!” Rocket screeched, going back through his bag, “Come on, where’s my  _ kruttacking _ \---”

“Rocket, no. I won’t tell anybody about this.”

Rocket seemed to ease down at that sentence, his already patchy fur settling down, ears flat against his head. For a moment, his expression shifted from that of rage to...almost helplessness. It pained Gamora to see him this way, and she wanted to make sure he wouldn’t suffer.

“I promise.” She added.

Rocket grunted and heaved himself back onto the mattress, hugging his knees tightly. Gamora sat at the foot of the mattress, briefly glancing at the open bag then back to Rocket.

“I swear I’m fine.”

Gamora pursed her lips, looking at him up and down. He most certainly was not “fine”.

“Why did you come here? You don’t even like this place.” 

Rocket looked up at the ceiling, watching as the old lamp above flickered. How the lights had remained active after so many decades of disuse, Gamora didn’t know. Maybe Halfworld had been waiting for him to come back.

Without thinking, Gamora reached a hand out to pet Rocket, but the raccoon shrank back, snapping at her. Once she realized her mistake, she retracted her hand and mouthed  _ sorry _ , not sure why she’d even attempted comfort in the first place. 

“I don’t need anybody to take care of me.” Rocket huffed, hopping off the bed and reaching in his bag again. “I’ll be fine here, I’ll just...”

From the bag, he took out a bottle of alcoholic liquid, opened it up and gulped it down. “I’ll just...be here.”

His frame trembled, knees buckling as he dropped to the ground, letting go of the alcoholic bottle and holding his head in his hands as he sighed. “I’m perfectly fine.”

Right there, Gamora could have confiscated the bottle from him before he started drinking at all, but given his current condition and whatever was boiling around in his head, she let him have this one. In hindsight, it was probably a terrible idea, Rocket could be sick and she wouldn’t know. He was always good at hiding his pain.

Rocket groaned, gripping his head tightly as he hobbled back onto the mattress, softly growling at Gamora like some feral creature and not...Rocket. His ruby eyes were glossed over and all of a sudden he seemed listless, when minutes prior he was in full fight-or-flight mode. Did the alcohol act that quickly, or was something else going on?

“Rocket, you know you can just tell me. I know you don’t want help, and I don’t have to help you; I just need to at least know what’s going on.” 

Admittedly, the “don’t have to help you” bit was somewhat of a lie; of course Gamora would help him ease his pain and suffering whenever possible. If he wished as such, she didn’t need to get  _ too _ involved. Perhaps only in the case of an emergency.

“You’ll never tell any of the gang about this, yeah?” Rocket picked at a scab above his bushy eyebrow. “Something  _ has _ been happening for a while.”

“What is it?”

Several long minutes ticked by as Rocket stared off in the distance, before looking down at his hands and sighing heavily. “I think I’m dying.”

______________________________________

A month had passed since Gamora and Rocket found their way on Halfworld. Per Gamora’s suspicions, the raccoon indeed had come here due to some newfound problems. Rocket’s body was failing him and he refused to be taken care of or found out by anybody about his sudden weakness. It just occurred to Gamora in that moment that Rocket indeed would have died had she not found him. 

As much as he wanted to die, Gamora struggled with keeping him relatively pain-free and able to move around somewhat while cooped up in the fortress. Gamora herself took to guarding the massive stone building, ensuring nobody would come and harm Rocket, for Gamora wanted to make sure he died peacefully and painlessly instead. Euthanasia seemed a viable option.

She’d made good work of the room within the fortress, transforming it from a decrepit storage area into a makeshift hospital room complete with everything Rocket needed to stabilize his ailing body. She’d gotten most of the equipment from an abandoned laboratory on the other side of Halfworld, using a miraculously working truck to transport everything back to the fortress.

Rocket, however, was not happy.

The raccoon struggled against the bandages and IV catheter, trying to tear them out before Gamora caught wind and prevented him from doing so. He snarled and snapped at her, still itching at his scabbed, patchy fur and demanding to be left alone at all times.

“I  _ told _ you!” Rocket hissed. “I  _ didn’t _ want to be in a hospital!”

“It’s not a hospital, it’s a...” Gamora looked around the transformed room, failing to find whatever else she would call it that wasn’t  _ hospital _ . “Okay, fine, it is a hospital. An intensive care unit, I think.”

“I don’t  _ need  _ care! I’m fine!”

Gamora rolled her eyes, backing away from Rocket for a moment and inspecting his body, seeing how she’d placed all of the medical devices on and around him, tubes and wires trailing behind him. He was patchier than ever and had been rapidly deteriorating. 

Rocket would eventually come to the conclusion that being hooked up to all these tubes and machines wasn’t so bad, after all, if it’d keep him alive for a brief amount of time. He no longer suffered from migraines as terrible, and Gamora would do her work defending the fortress all on her own.

“Rocket, look at you.” Gamora gestured to Rocket’s withering body; he’d changed his clothes to his old orange jumpsuit, hanging down at his waist to make room for the tubes and bandaging on him. “Like you told me, you’re dying.”

“Good observation.” Rocket growled. “Want a medal for that or something?”

Ignoring Rocket’s comment, Gamora pulled away the curtain and hoisted her rifle onto her shoulder. “I’m going out to get more supplies. If you need anything, call me.”

Halfworld being all but abandoned gave Gamora a great advantage of collecting supplies, food, water, and more from all around the planet. However, the fact that it  _ was _ abandoned also meant that supplies were limited. The natural side of the planet would flourish as long as rain came and trees bore fruit, but the industrial side was another story. Although there was still so much left over from when the citizens had fled, she knew it couldn't last forever. She only needed to take what she could from the industrial side that could benefit both her and Rocket.

The observations she had about Halfworld helped her understand Rocket’s predicament better, and gave her new insight into what she thought of the choleric raccoon. In a way, Rocket _ was _ Halfworld; part nature and part machine. While Halfworld’s natural side continued its lush beauty and the industrial side stood strong despite decaying slowly, Rocket’s  _ entire _ body was rotting away from the inside out. Both his cybernetics and biological body were shutting down. No wonder he’d come back here.

She had just come up with an idea, Despite the fact that it would be breaking her promise of silence to Rocket, she wanted to tell Groot and the others about Rocket’s whereabouts. They were probably worried sick about him. Walking out of sight of Rocket’s fortress and standing on top of the tallest hill she could find, she pulled out her phone, and called.

“Groot? I know where Rocket is.” Gamora recoiled at the shout from the receiving side. “He’s alive. He’s with me, he---he will be fine. “

From the other end, Groot sounded furious. Furious and concerned for the raccoon he’d considered his best friend and family for so long. It hurt Gamora to hear the worry in his deep voice, and hurt even more that she had to lie about how Rocket was doing. She knew he would never be fine, he was dying and likely would die before ever meeting Groot again. Even as she tried to ease the giant tree’s worries, she couldn’t, and eventually apologized for not doing better, hanging up on him. She was sure Groot would tell the others about what happened.

Before she could recollect her thoughts, the phone rang. Expecting it to be Groot again, her eyes widened as she saw it was coming from Rocket instead. As she placed the phone to her ear, she listened to Rocket’s wet, rattling coughs through the receiving end, wheezing swears in-between.

“I--Maybe...M-maybe I’m not---” he coughed violently and Gamora was sure she heard him vomit. “---Maybe I’m not...fine!”

“No shit!” Gamora stuffed the phone in her pocket, and with the rifle slung over her back, bolted towards the fortress.

Pulling away the curtain, she was greeted with Rocket collapsed on the floor, weakly letting go of the phone as he retched and struggled to breathe with the vomit befouling his throat. Gamora suppressed the urge to vomit herself as she rushed over to Rocket’s side, carefully sitting him up against the wall so he wouldn’t aspirate on his bile. She removed his nasal cannula and helped him breathe better despite his hacking coughs.

“What happened here? Did you drink?!” Gamora looked around for any alcohol bottles, but there were none to be seen, only the medical devices already toppled over and vomit on the ground.

“I, eh...” Rocket wheezed, eyes rolling up in his head. Gamora could tell he was pale, from the bare patches of skin he had. “I...my lungs...”

Ignoring the fact that the raccoon was soaked with vomit, she put an ear near his chest and listened to his breathing patterns. When he wasn’t coughing, his breaths became ragged, almost wet and as if his lungs were sloshing around with fluid. That was not a good sign.

“Hold on!” Gamora lifted him up onto the bed---he felt too light for her comfort---and scoped out a bucket which she placed right next to him. “Here is a bucket you can puke in. I’m going to get help for you. Please call me if there’s anything else!”

“Gah---Gamora...” Rocket struggled to sit up, his weakened, aching muscles failing to let him. “Let---Let me die.”

Gamora frowned, she had known he’d fully accepted his inevitable death and was willing to go out at any time, but she couldn’t let somebody who was her friend and family to just die now. It was still too soon.

Overcome by the stench of vomit, she quickly deducted that she’d have to give him a bath first, especially since she didn’t want to risk infection if she were to perform surgery. Rocket usually showered by himself, but Gamora didn’t trust him to go alone this time.

The bathroom was just adjacent from Rocket’s room, small but filled to the brim with everything a bathroom needed thanks to Gamora’s scouring around for supplies. Like Rocket’s room, it was blue-white in artificial light and used to be a relatively empty, dirty area.

Rocket was too weak to walk at this point, let alone rid himself of all the medical tubing, so Gamora took it upon herself to remove any parts that would interfere with bathing. She paused as she reached his jumpsuit, but shrugged off any offending thoughts as she was caring for a patient and nothing else. Rocket hardly moved, but he did growl and swear at her occasionally.

As she carried Rocket into the bathroom, she took in his physical appearance now that he was free of his medical implements and jumpsuit.

His fur was in rough, uneven patches, his once-bushy ringed tail thinning out, and he was covered in scabs and sores from picking and scratching at his skin the whole time. His ruby eyes were losing their shine, sunken back in his skull. She was sure that if he didn’t have the black mask, he’d have dark circles around his eyes.

Gamora had felt them, but she could just as easily see his bones pulled far too tightly over his skin, the muscles in his arms and legs atrophying from this...illness he had. That was nothing short of how his cybernetics looked, poking out of his back more than ever, the ugly scarring red and inflamed from lack of care.

His organs, particularly his digestive system, were shutting down fast and he could no longer keep any food in, refusing even the smallest piece of fruit Gamora offered. This led to him losing too much weight for Gamora to bear, and she knew there was nothing she could do at that point. At the very least, she’d found an intravenous source of nutrition for him once his body rejected food; it wouldn’t stop him from wasting away, but it could slow down the process.

It wouldn’t be too much time before the rest of his body caught up to him and he finally keeled over. It had only been a month.

At least his personality was intact.

Gamora waited at the door of the bathroom as Rocket cleaned himself up. She didn’t want to leave his side lest he collapse and vomit again, this time with no help available. It took half an hour until Rocket was done, pulling the jumpsuit up to his waist and grumbling to himself. 

“You need to put all that medical stuff back on, remember?” Gamora readied the IV stand. “And I need to figure out what’s going on in your lungs.”

Rocket said nothing, only nodding, reluctantly doing as he was told with Gamora’s help, and carried back into his bed. Gamora would have to go and get all the surgical supplies---hopefully if she could find anaesthetic somewhere in the industrial portion of the planet. As she walked out of the fortress, looking back to make sure Rocket was at least okay, she tapped at her phone and reminded herself to tell Groot the truth about Rocket’s condition.

She knew how much Rocket disliked the surgical process---she did, too---but there was no other choice as the fluid build-up in his lungs was a  _ very _ bad sign. If she wanted to ease his suffering, she had to figure out a way to drain the fluid from his lungs.

If she couldn’t at the very least make sure Rocket died without any pain, she would have failed him as his own body was.

______________________________________

Several months went by. Gamora wasn’t surprised that Rocket had held on for this long; the raccoon was as resilient as he was stubborn, and all the medical implements had extended his life expectancy a tiny bit more. He went from dying in mere weeks to being alive for at least four or five months since he arrived. That didn’t mean his condition was improving. On the contrary, the medical help only  _ delayed  _ his deterioration, not stopped it entirely. He was still dying, but much more slowly than he’d have if Gamora never helped.

  
“Rocket.” She pulled the curtain away, holding a bowl of mush in one hand. “I want you to try something.”

“Piss off,” came the grumbling reply. Gamora had gotten used to Rocket’s attitude issues, especially as they worsened over time along with his physical condition.

Rocket was huddled in the corner of his bed, all the tubes sticking out of him, including the one entering his chest and the diodes placed onto his head. He was beginning to have seizures, another consequence of his body rejecting the cybernetic modifications. 

Gamora sighed, walking towards the bed and sitting, holding out the bowl of food in front of Rocket. “It’s mashed vegetables and water. I want to know if you can still eat. I tried to ensure it would be safe for your stomach.”

“Why don’t  _ you _ eat it?” Rocket peeked at the food bowl, his snout wrinkling. “I’ll just puke.”

“It’s for you.” Gamora mixed the contents around, inching closer to Rocket. “You can’t live on IV fluids forever...Or, well, for as long as you have time left here.”

Rocket took another look at the bowl, then up at Gamora. He was still refusing, and Gamora was on edge, ready to force-feed him if he kept turning his nose away from all and any food offers. 

The raccoon’s ribcage was more prominent than ever, and his stomach had shrunk and sunken from the lack of food and vomiting spells. Even more fur was falling out, more sores and scabs littered his body, and he had considerable difficulty breathing. She knew there wasn’t much time left for him. The seizures alone had proved as much.

“I want you to eat something.” Gamora set the bowl down on the bed. “Just a little bit. Please.”

“Didn’t I say piss off?” Rocket growled, which sent him into another coughing fit.

Gamora’s patience was wearing thin, and gods forbid anybody dared to destroy what little patience she had. Despite Rocket’s frail condition, he still held a sharp tongue and spoke bitterly of the world around him---even more so since he began dying. 

“Rocket...”

“I said piss off!” Rocket snarled, scratching at his neck. “Why do you keep trying to  _ help _ ?!”

Angered, Gamora threw the bowl of food against the wall, startling Rocket, who shrunk himself back even further, the sour look on his face replaced with wide-eyed fear. Rocket hissed at her, scarred ears pinned back at his head.

“I know what you are like, Rocket, but honestly!” Gamora stood straight up, stomping her foot against the floor. “I’ve been taking care of you for five months, guarding you outside this fortress from random people and what not! I’ve been busting my back just to run all the way or use your space pod or a vehicle to transport everything here!”

She took a deep breath, and continued. “Who do you think is keeping you alive and free of pain? Who hauled her ass out of here to gather all this medical equipment to help you out? And who gave you surgery just so she could drain dangerous fluids from your lungs in order to breathe properly?!”

Rocket said nothing, averting his ruby eyes from her.

“Who found you here, stumbling into this old fortress trying to die all by himself, huh? Wasn’t it me?” Gamora finished, crossing her arms and giving Rocket an icy glare.

“You.” Rocket grumbled at last. His voice was tinged with regret and fear, all traces of his acidic persona now gone as he trembled in the corner of his bed.

Realizing that perhaps she had been too tough on the dying raccoon, Gamora tried to ease down, lowering her tense shoulders and sitting back on the bed. “Rocket. I’ve done terrible things. Much, much worse than what you have.”

“And why are you telling me this?” Rocket scowled.

“Because think about what I could have done. I could have gone by your wish and simply let you die, or I could have killed you. But I didn’t, because you’re my friend. You distanced yourself from the other Guardians, but you found me. I’m fairly sure half of the universe hates my guts, now more than ever, and as I’m alone on this rotten planet...I only have you.”

“But...” Rocket raised a brow, “You agreed to putting me down. That’s why you’re protecting me in the first place.”

“It’s hard, Rocket.” Gamora sighed. “Assassinating total strangers or sworn enemies, that’s easy for me to do. But to end a friend’s life...”

Gamora wiped away a tear that dared to escape her eye, and continued. “That night after you threw up, I was seriously considering it. Coming to you in your sleep, aiming my rifle at your head, about to pull the trigger. But as I saw you in your room, trying so hard to sleep and failing...something stopped me. I...I couldn’t do it.”

Rocket looked back up at Gamora, the coarse lines of his haggard face softening somewhat. He looked sorry about everything he’d said just before, although would never admit it. Such were the stubborn ways of the raccoon.

“Gamora,” he wheezed.

“Yeah?”

“I’ll—I’ll show you where I was born. Not here.” 

Gamora raised a brow. Why was he now showing her his exact birthplace? She came to a morbid realization afterwards, mouthing  _ oh _ . Nodding at Rocket, she pulled a wheelchair out of the closet and prepared Rocket to get in.

“You can’t travel long distances on foot, you’re far too weak. You need your medical equipment.”

Rocket grumbled. “Yeah, sure. Why can’t I take my cool robot instead?”

“Nobody else is here—-wait, you have a robot?” Gamora eyed him suspiciously.

“I sneaked your phone out and ordered a robot just in case I ever needed to use it. Just in case.”

Gamora snorted and shook her head. “Oh, Rocket.”

Any other time he’d done that, and she would have been royally pissed. She didn’t even have to ask how much it cost or how the hell he’d transported it here. He was dying, after all, why not let him have a little luxury for once? He had nothing left to lose, and to be fair, neither did she. She was still a little mad about his attitude, through. 

Despite Rocket’s demand to be placed in his “cool robot”, Gamora stuffed him in the wheelchair and hooked up all his medical devices to it. Slinging her rifle over her shoulder, she then wheeled him outside, briefly glancing up to make sure no spaceships were headed their way, and proceeded.

Rocket pointed out where he wanted her to take him, leading her to the industrial portion of the planet. Gamora looked around the decaying ruins and rubble, land formerly filled to the brim with inhabitants. She noticed the difference between the lively, green and blue landscape of the natural side and the steely gray and blacks of the industrial side. Halfworld, indeed.

“There.” Rocket pointed at a massive marble building, off-white against the gray backdrop of the sky.

Gamora looked up and stepped back to get the full scope of the building. A broken glass dome took most of the roof, vines creeped out from all directions around the walls, the windows were smashed, the door broken open, and the walls cracked and stained. As much as it had decayed in a long time, it still held an imposing air to it.  _ This _ was where Rocket was born?

“The Biosphere.” Rocket explained. “A lot of us were born on the natural side of the planet, if we were lucky, but...I wasn’t. I was one of the results of breeding experiments conducted here. I was essentially  _ born _ to be a laboratory experiment, with hardly any knowledge of the other side of the world...”

The lengthy speech had easily winded the sickly raccoon out, leaving him gasping for breath. Gamora adjusted his oxygen tank so he could breathe better, and asked, “Are you okay?”

“What does it look like?” Rocket hissed. “I’m dying! Let’s...let’s go inside.”

Gamora proceeded, although hesitant, into the doorway of the building. The inside was nearly pitch-black, dust choking up her throat and nostrils as she wheeled Rocket in. The inside wasn’t much to look at, empty and long having been sacked by Ravagers and other vandals. However, she understood why he wanted to come here. If anywhere were the perfect place to bury Rocket once he’d finally expired, it would be somewhere in this building.

“I remember this.” Rocket pointed to a laboratory room, trembling. “That’s where they...did things.”

“Why are you showing me this, Rocket?” Gamora asked, trying not to think of whatever horrors Rocket had witnessed back in his time there.

“Figured I’d spill some truths to you now that I’m dying, and you bothered to take care of me at all.” Rocket shrugged. “You...went through the trouble of making sure I was still around, huh?”

Gamora paused for a moment before nodding slowly. She wheeled Rocket back outside, faced him and kneeled down to his eye level, sighing.

“Rocket.” She began. “It’s been five months. I’ve learned more from you than I ever have in the past, and although some questions I’ve had were answered, I still have so many more to ask.”

“Fire away.”

“I---” Before Gamora could ask her first question, she and Rocket were interrupted by a loud  _ whoosh _ in the distance. The two whipped around towards the fortress to see a cloud of smoke forming as a spaceship descended from the sky.

“Oh,  _ flark _ !” 

She’d never seen a spaceship of this size before, at least not this large landing anywhere in Halfworld; Ravager ships were usually tiny things actually connected to a mothership, for one. A ship this large had to mean  _ something _ . Even if it meant leaving Rocket behind. As much as the thought pained her, if Groot and the other Guardians truly had arrived, they likely wanted nothing to do with Rocket who as far as they know effectively abandoned them and left himself to die.

She rushed Rocket back to the fortress, quickly unhooking all his equipment from the wheelchair and settling him back in bed---even as Rocket protested and demanded to see what was going on out there.

Gamora placed her hands on his shoulders and gazed directly into her eyes, her voice firm yet concerned as she spoke. “Rocket. Somebody is here. For whatever reason, this might be goodbye.”

“What are you talking about? You were just fine all the other times!” Rocket cried.

“I don’t think I’ve seen a spaceship this big before. That means it has to be important. You...you have to stay here.”

“Why?! Are you crazy?”

Gamora cupped his cheeks, knowing she couldn’t tell Rocket about her suspicions that the Guardians had come for her, because that would be admitting that she’d broken the rule.. “Listen to me. You have to let it go. You said you were dying. Now, you can.”

“Why can’t I die with you?” Rocket weakly grabbed onto Gamora’s hand, eyes welling with tears. He hadn’t felt this much hurt and attachment towards anybody except for Groot, not in a long time. It took five months of intensive care and guarding to make him feel this way towards Gamora. He was almost embarrassed.

Gamora, too, was near tears, but braced herself. “You could get killed. Instead of, you know, dying peacefully. Like I want you.”

“But what if I  _ want _ to go out fighting! I don’t care how weak I am! I’ve got a robot!” Rocket growled.

“I’m not risking that!”

“Why can’t you just kill me now, instead?!”

Gamora paused. Hadn’t she explained her hesitance to euthanize him before? How hard it was to even think of pulling the trigger and ending his life right there, no matter how quick and painless it would be? She had no answer for him.

Seeing him that night, freshly-bandaged up, knees up to his chin and shivering, looking so frustrated that he couldn’t sleep...It brought on too much pity in Gamora’s heart to consider the deed. It was as if taking care of him was  _ softening _ her up.

The duo could hear the spaceship hissing as the main door opened up, Gamora’s heartbeat quickened as she backed away from Rocket, grabbing her rifle and some ammo. She looked back at him one more time, noticing how he looked more frail than ever, his entire frame trembling, his eyes wide with worry, confusion and hurt.

“Bye, Rocket.” Gamora said. “If I come back here, alive, I will make sure to bury you.”

Kicking the door open, Gamora prepared her rifle, headed for the hills, and took aim at whoever was intruding Rocket’s home. Once she saw the stranger, she fired.

“Surprise.” She smirked.

  
  


Meanwhile, Rocket struggled to look out through the shuttered windows of the fortress. As much as he wanted to run to Gamora, he knew he was far too weak for that, and certainly didn’t want anybody to see him in this state. Although he didn’t recognize the spaceship that had landed, he immediately knew some of the people on-board. Groot was here. Peter Quill, too.

So, that was it. Gamora  _ had _ broken her promise, and had nothing to show for it until now. He felt faint, only trying to stay up out of curiosity as he watched Groot converse with Gamora, looking quite bitter himself. It had been months since they last met, and Groot looked quite different from how he’d remembered.

Rocket watched as they conversed, as they hugged and headed back on the spaceship. The raccoon collapsed back in his bed, bile rising up angrily in his throat, his head spinning as he stared up at the ceiling.

Maybe, he thought, maybe it was a good thing that none of the Guardians actually  _ found _ him hiding in there. He felt that to them, he was better off dead and made sure he would be seen as such. However, if Gamora truly did break her promise, that meant they knew he was still alive, but dared not to look inside fortress. 

That was a smart decision on their part, at least to Rocket. He didn’t have to be found out, didn’t have to be caught in his withered, dying condition, on the brink of death and deteriorating even further each day. It wouldn’t be how he wanted to be remembered. He wanted everybody to know him as a Guardian of the Galaxy, not as a decrepit and sickly animal hiding away from the world.

They would come back, he thought as well, of course they would. They always did come back to family no matter what happened.

Briefly glancing at his phone, he considered calling Gamora to ask her what the hell had gone on and why she broke his promise and everything else back there---but he couldn’t. Instead, he remained in his bed, scowling and trying to fight back tears from spilling down his cheeks.

Curling up into a ball, Rocket wished he had already died five months ago. 


End file.
